The present invention generally relates to catheter input monitoring and configuration. In particular, the present invention relates to systems and methods for virtual catheter input module management.
The normal pumping of the heart results from the ordered contraction of the muscles of the heart, the myocardium. When the myocardium is electrically stimulated, it contracts. The sinoatrial node (SA node) generates an electrical impulse that is propagated to the myocardium. Typically, the SA node spontaneously generates the electrical impulse. Certain problems may occur when the electrical impulse is generated and/or propagates incorrectly.
An electrophysiology (EP) study may include one or more tests performed to acquire data about the electrical signals in the heart. An EP study is performed by placing one or more catheters into a patient's heart. The catheters monitor the electrical signals in the heart. A catheter may include one or more leads for relaying the monitored signals to a catheter monitoring system such as an EP laboratory system. In some situations, a catheter may be used to stimulate the heart by introducing electrical impulses in an EP study.
An intracardiac (IC) channel is an electrical trace between two electrodes located within the heart. The electrodes are located on a catheter, which is placed into the heart. Selecting two poles from the catheter(s) and then displaying the resulting signal create the intracardiac channel. Intracardiac channels can be created in the following manner: Any two poles from a single catheter (bipolar channel), any single pole from the catheter and a reference point (unipolar channel), or by using a single pole from two different catheters (cross-catheter bipolar channel). There are many properties of this signal that can be enhanced to improve the usefulness of the signal, such as: Gain, High Pass Filters, Low Pass Filters and Notch Filters.
For example, to perform an EP study, three intracardiac (IC) catheters may be placed into a patient's heart to monitor the electrical signals as they travel through the heart and cross the three catheters. A cardiac amplifier may be used to amplify received catheter input. The cardiac amplifier includes several components, including a Catheter Input Module (CIM). The catheters may be connected to input ports on a catheter input module (CIM) that is part of the monitoring system. The CIM physically connects the catheter connectors to the cardiac amplifier hardware. Each catheter may have one or more data channels. A data channel includes a signal electrode and a reference electrode. The reference electrode may come from a lead in the catheter or from an auxiliary or external reference, for example.
For cardiac diagnosis, a physician looks for clear, clean cardiograms. An acquisition system should capture electrophysiological signals as small as 1 mV. The signals should be captured with very little noise and displayed, stored and sent to other equipment in a real-time or substantially real-time manner. The signals should be filtered in a variety of ways, and the captured data should reject artifacts caused by other equipment such as pace makers and ablation devices. Therefore, an invasive cardiology digital signal amplifier may be used to amplify acquired signal data with reduced noise.
Current systems utilize an amplifier to receive and amplify input from IC catheters. The number of inputs available for the IC catheters may be fixed based on the amplifier model purchased. Thus, when additional catheter inputs are desired, a user must currently replace the entire amplifier with a different model, incurring additional cost and system downtime. In other current systems, the amplifier may utilize one or more CIMs. In such systems, when additional catheter inputs are desired, the catheter monitoring system must be powered down and opened up for the new CIM hardware to be installed.
As discussed above, current systems do not support the addition of additional catheter inputs to the hardware during a study. However, the number of catheter inputs needed during a study can change. For example, during a study a healthcare practitioner may determine an additional catheter is desired to be included in the study. As another example, at the beginning of a study, only a subset of the leads from a catheter may be used. During the study, the healthcare provider may decide to utilize additional leads. If additional catheter inputs are not available when desired during the study, the study will have to be closed before the amplifier can be replaced or powered down so additional CIMs can be added.
In some systems, a study configuration may be used. A study configuration is a set of saved intracardiac channel settings, including but not limited to, channel labels, pole configurations, filtering options, etc. Additionally, the study configuration may contain other settings that pertain to a specific type of procedure that do not relate directly to the intracardiac catheters, but do pertain to the type of study being performed, for example. A study configuration allows an end user to more quickly retrieve pre-configured settings based on the type of case being performed. It would be desirable to allow a user to make a change to an existing study configuration and make the changed information available to save, load and edit for future cases.
Typically, when a clinical study is in progress and there is a change in direction of the case, the user may need to change the current catheter configuration. A change in catheter configuration involves disconnection and connection of many wires as well as creation of new intracardiac channels to support the new catheter in use. Currently, no method allows a user to connect a catheter to a CIM and dynamically create pre-defined intracardiac channels based on the type of catheter being connected.
Additionally, if several catheters are in use during a study, determining which catheters are currently connected to a CIM may be challenging, especially since the amplifier is typically installed near the patient table, and the software and configuration is located in a separate control room. A system and/or method providing a virtual or software depiction of CIM configuration to a user would be highly desirable.
Furthermore, a system and/or method for adding additional intracardiac channels to a given study would be highly desirable. There is a need for an interface allowing a user to create a new bipolar, unipolar or cross catheter bipolar channel. An interface allowing a user to define label, gain and filter settings for a new intracardiac display channel would be highly desirable.
Furthermore, a user interface allowing a software application to properly display the cardiograms captured by the amplifier would be highly desirable.